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Literature Text
Why I Hate Today's "Music"
by Alec Damiano, ©2011
Why is so much talentless dreg pumped through the airwaves and shoved down our throats? Once upon a time, being a successful musician consisted of actually being able to play a musical instrument. Singers could actually sing and did not rely on computers in order to sound decent. Less young people are listening to mainstream radio today and more are tuning into indie, classic rock, and old-school rap music. Instead of relying on the Billboard Top 100 for musical guidance, teenagers are using YouTube to discover artists that they feel are actually worth their time. The music industry has hit an all-time low, and not only due to Internet piracy. When asked about his views on illegally downloading music, Bob Dylan stated, "Well, why not? It ain't worth nothing anyway." If music defines generations, then what is left for us?
Today, musical "artists" are constantly being force-fed to us by the media. When one turns on the television, another Autotune-dependent female rapper is rambling on about sex or Justin Bieber's newest video is being played for the hundredth time that day. It seems as if the music itself does not attract audiences anymore. Therefore, record executives must market their artists to death, and the media becomes overflooded with plastic, talentless stars. Payola--the act of a record company paying radio stations to play their artists' songs--is more active than ever, and usually only these mediocre artists make it onto the mainstream radio. If a decent song does make it onto the airwaves, it is horrendously overplayed and people lose interest. The Billboard Top 100 bases its charts on the barcodes of CDs scanned at stores. So even if an artist sells half a million records independently--like at their concerts, for instance--they would still not make it onto the top-selling charts, and therefore would not be played on the Top 40 radio. Because it seems only a select number of singers are played on the mainstream radio, today's audiences are settling on music that is of terrible quality.
Technology is greatly responsible for the decline. Digital recording has essentially replaced analog tapes. Because today's music industry now relies on computers, producers are able to alter recordings very easily. Programs such as Autotune and Pro Tools allow mediocre musicians to sound decent, masking their faults and lack of talent. These programs are so powerful, they have been used to convert even excerpts from news shows into songs. Take the "Bed Intruder Song", for instance. Someone used an excerpt from a news interview with Antoine Dodson and turned it into a song with the assistance of computer programs. It became a massive hit on YouTube and has sold thousands of copies on iTunes. The majority of music on the mainstream radio does not even use real instruments anymore. Today's "songs" are comprised of three layers: drum machines thumping, random computer-generated pseudo-strings and bass lines, and a rapper babbling nonexistent words over it to top it all off.
When the lyrics of Far East Movement's "Like A G6" (2010) were compared to those of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" (1975), they paled in comparison. "Kashmir" comes across as poetry, while "Like A G6" consists of repetitive, nonsensical, and even nonexistent words. The opening lines of the former are: "I wanna let the sun beat down upon my face/Stars to fill my dream" while those of the latter are: "Popping bottles in the ice like a blizzard/When we drink we do it right gettin' slizzard ". Children and teenagers are no longer exposed to quality music, unless their parents or Guitar Hero do so. The mainstream media has become so artificial, with hardly any expression of human feelings. The "music" has become as static as the computers that generate it. Because of this, our generation is conforming to the mediocrity, falsity, and superficiality in today's media instead of carving themselves out to be genuine individuals. Surely, musical taste does not dictate everything about a person, but it can surely be a window into their personality, mind, and soul.
The likes of Pro Tools and Autotune are like plastic surgery for music. Those implants may look appealing on the surface, but they are only false and causing one to rot inside. There is no element of humanness, no flesh or blood. There is only cold, hard, shiny plastic that will not stand the test of time. Many times, those implants can cause disease and make one lose everything they are naturally given. That is precisely what today's "music" is doing to our society. It is infecting it like a cancer that will slowly kill everything with a shred of life, art, or realness. And it is spreading ever-so-quickly. If they say music is the language of the soul, then our generation is all dead inside.
by Alec Damiano, ©2011
Why is so much talentless dreg pumped through the airwaves and shoved down our throats? Once upon a time, being a successful musician consisted of actually being able to play a musical instrument. Singers could actually sing and did not rely on computers in order to sound decent. Less young people are listening to mainstream radio today and more are tuning into indie, classic rock, and old-school rap music. Instead of relying on the Billboard Top 100 for musical guidance, teenagers are using YouTube to discover artists that they feel are actually worth their time. The music industry has hit an all-time low, and not only due to Internet piracy. When asked about his views on illegally downloading music, Bob Dylan stated, "Well, why not? It ain't worth nothing anyway." If music defines generations, then what is left for us?
Today, musical "artists" are constantly being force-fed to us by the media. When one turns on the television, another Autotune-dependent female rapper is rambling on about sex or Justin Bieber's newest video is being played for the hundredth time that day. It seems as if the music itself does not attract audiences anymore. Therefore, record executives must market their artists to death, and the media becomes overflooded with plastic, talentless stars. Payola--the act of a record company paying radio stations to play their artists' songs--is more active than ever, and usually only these mediocre artists make it onto the mainstream radio. If a decent song does make it onto the airwaves, it is horrendously overplayed and people lose interest. The Billboard Top 100 bases its charts on the barcodes of CDs scanned at stores. So even if an artist sells half a million records independently--like at their concerts, for instance--they would still not make it onto the top-selling charts, and therefore would not be played on the Top 40 radio. Because it seems only a select number of singers are played on the mainstream radio, today's audiences are settling on music that is of terrible quality.
Technology is greatly responsible for the decline. Digital recording has essentially replaced analog tapes. Because today's music industry now relies on computers, producers are able to alter recordings very easily. Programs such as Autotune and Pro Tools allow mediocre musicians to sound decent, masking their faults and lack of talent. These programs are so powerful, they have been used to convert even excerpts from news shows into songs. Take the "Bed Intruder Song", for instance. Someone used an excerpt from a news interview with Antoine Dodson and turned it into a song with the assistance of computer programs. It became a massive hit on YouTube and has sold thousands of copies on iTunes. The majority of music on the mainstream radio does not even use real instruments anymore. Today's "songs" are comprised of three layers: drum machines thumping, random computer-generated pseudo-strings and bass lines, and a rapper babbling nonexistent words over it to top it all off.
When the lyrics of Far East Movement's "Like A G6" (2010) were compared to those of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" (1975), they paled in comparison. "Kashmir" comes across as poetry, while "Like A G6" consists of repetitive, nonsensical, and even nonexistent words. The opening lines of the former are: "I wanna let the sun beat down upon my face/Stars to fill my dream" while those of the latter are: "Popping bottles in the ice like a blizzard/When we drink we do it right gettin' slizzard ". Children and teenagers are no longer exposed to quality music, unless their parents or Guitar Hero do so. The mainstream media has become so artificial, with hardly any expression of human feelings. The "music" has become as static as the computers that generate it. Because of this, our generation is conforming to the mediocrity, falsity, and superficiality in today's media instead of carving themselves out to be genuine individuals. Surely, musical taste does not dictate everything about a person, but it can surely be a window into their personality, mind, and soul.
The likes of Pro Tools and Autotune are like plastic surgery for music. Those implants may look appealing on the surface, but they are only false and causing one to rot inside. There is no element of humanness, no flesh or blood. There is only cold, hard, shiny plastic that will not stand the test of time. Many times, those implants can cause disease and make one lose everything they are naturally given. That is precisely what today's "music" is doing to our society. It is infecting it like a cancer that will slowly kill everything with a shred of life, art, or realness. And it is spreading ever-so-quickly. If they say music is the language of the soul, then our generation is all dead inside.
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I wrote this for a scholarship. You can agree or disagree with it, but it's going to be really hard to change my mind.
I personally like how it came out. It's good if you like it, it's fine if you don't. I'll respect your opinion as long as you respect mine.
I personally like how it came out. It's good if you like it, it's fine if you don't. I'll respect your opinion as long as you respect mine.
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This is why I listen to lampros Leontarakis at youtube AKA lamprouk75- ; AdrianVonZiegler at youtube ; Angus Dei (classic version).... I hate modern music as they don't sound so deeply thought-out.